Just Hopeless Enough
by lowriseflare
Summary: Season 12, right before "Lost in America". "Ray," she says, and it comes out more like a whisper than she means for it to. "Do you think I made a mistake?"


Neela knows she has to move out for a long time before she actually does it. By the time the weather starts to turn, it's only a question of when.

The weekend before it happens she stays in to prepare for her conference presentation, clicking through her slideshow over and over, reorganizing her notes. She stops by his bedroom after getting a snack. "Have you got a highlighter?" she asks, leaning against the doorjamb. He's watching some ridiculous timewaster on YouTube, a baby using vulgarity or some such nonsense. She hands him her bag of crisps.

"Yeah, maybe." Ray peers into the pen cup next to his computer, opens the top desk drawer. He's wearing sweatpants and a _Saved by the Bell_ t-shirt. "Don't you have one?"

"I have four, actually. But they're all yellow. I need a contrasting color." She wanders over to the bed, picks up the grizzled spiral notebook where he's scribbled down what looks like lyrics in his abominable chicken-scratch handwriting. _Woman_, she makes out, squinting a little. _Love_.

"Of course you do. Hey," he says, getting up and grabbing it out of her hands with greater agility than she's seen from him in quite some time. "Give me that. Nosy."

"Well, sorry. You just left it lying there out in the open."

"On my bed in my room where I sleep?"

"All right, all right. I said sorry." He sounded vaguely panicked there for a moment, actually. Neela smells blood. She puts a finger to her lips. "Was that a _love_ song?" she asks.

"No."

"It was!" she cries out, almost crowing. She likes to tease him, she can't help it. It's all platonic. A brother-sister thing. "Do you fancy someone?"

Ray snorts. "Do I _what_?"

"You know what I mean." She rolls her eyes. "Oh, Neela's so British. Let's all have a giggle and ask her which of the Spice Girls is her favorite."

"You _are_ so British. I'm going to make a Neela Rasgotra drinking game. Take a shot every time Neela reminds you of the Queen of England."

"Take a shot every time Ray reminds you of a member of Queen."

"Smartass."

"Wanker." She claps a hand over her mouth. "Damn."

"Ha." Ray opens his bottom desk drawer, pulls out a bottle of Knob Creek.

"You keep whiskey in your bedroom?" she asks. "What is this, a freshman dormitory?"

"Ooh, somebody was wild at Yale." Ray laughs at the look on her face. "Anyway, I have to hide it because certain people like to drink shit that isn't theirs."

"One time. One time, I did that."

"Mm-hmm." He grins, hands her the bottle. "Bottoms up, Roomie."

*

Sitting up against the headboard in his bedroom an hour later, Ray's a little drunk. Neela is Britisher than he thought. "Bugger?" he asks. There's a draft coming in through his window, and the hair on his arms prickles in the cold. "Really? Since when do you say bugger?"

"I've always said bugger. See?" She takes another sip of the bourbon, passes him the bottle. "I just said it again. Anyway, stop distracting me. I need to prepare for this thing."

"You're not doing any preparing tonight."

"I have to." She's sitting on the desk, tipping the chair back with one bare foot. "I don't know if you've heard, but I'm giving a very important presentation in a couple of days."

"You know, I actually don't think you've mentioned it." Ray grins. What a tool she is. "But you can't work on it now. Even if you wanted to work on it now, which you don't, I have _Rosemary's Baby _from Netflix. You're gonna knock that over," he tells her.

"I am not," she says, as the chair falls. It hits the hardwood with a clatter and Neela laughs, sliding off the desk and coming over to sit beside him on the bed. She smells like liquor and vanilla. Like dessert.

Ray swallows. He keeps waiting for this bizarre alternate universe to bend over on itself again, for things to go back to normal. Hasn't happened yet. "I told you."

"Nobody likes a know it all, Raymond. Does anyone call you Raymond?"

"My grandma does."

"That's lovely," Neela says. The cardigan slips from her shoulder, the strap of her tank top pale against her skin. "My grandma calls me 'small round girl'."

Ray runs his thumb over the mouth of the bottle. He's not drunk enough not to realize what a shitty idea this is. He should probably go sit on the floor. "Does she really?" he asks, trying to keep his voice neutral.

"Well, it sounds nicer in Punjabi."

"Yeah, I bet."

*

She's going to get up. Any minute. Neela can't say quite how she's wound up lying not just on Ray's bed but in it, duvet pulled up to her chin. It's chilly in here, that's all. His pillow smells like hair gel. She feels very sleepy. "Why are you at home tonight, anyway?" she asks him, propping herself up on one elbow. "Shouldn't you be at a middle school dance trying to get a date?"

Ray smirks at her. He's sitting on top of the covers and picking at a loose thread in the fabric, a galaxy of freckles on his arms. "Take a shot every time Neela makes a joke at your expense."

"You make it so easy we'd never sober up."

"Funny lady."

"I am funny. So, you never told me," she says. It occurs to Neela that some small horrid part of her knows exactly what she's doing--has known for months, maybe--and doesn't particularly want to stop. "If you fancy someone."

Ray hesitates. "Neela," he says quietly. He slides down until he's lying next to her, turned onto his side so their faces are almost touching. He has a tiny bump on the bridge of his nose that she's never noticed before. "Come on."

"It's Jerry, isn't it."

He smiles a little. "Frank, actually."

"Well, Frank is a handsome man."

They look at each other. They don't talk. After awhile his eyes slip closed. His skin is so pale, the color of milk. Neela thinks there is a possibility she's the worst person ever born.

She's definitely going to move out. Even if she doesn't want to.

Especially because she doesn't.

"Ray," she says, and it comes out more like a whisper than she means for it to. "Do you think I made a mistake?"

"Hmm?" he asks, opening his eyes. "What?"

"Getting married. Do you think I made a mistake?"

Ray's entire body goes rigid; Neela feels the mattress shift. "I think you're drunk, sweetheart," he says finally.

"I'm not that drunk."

"Yeah, you are."

"You're drunk, too."

"Yeah, I am."

"So why won't you be honest with me?"

"Neela," he says, and for a moment he sounds like a patient at work: _help me out, here_. "I'm being as honest with you as I can."

Neela swallows, her traitorous body flushing warm. "Ginger," she says, at last.

"Hmm?"

"Ginger Spice is my favorite of the Spice Girls."

Ray nods, like this is a perfectly sensical sequitur. A tacit agreement, complicity. "I always liked Baby, myself."

"All the boys did."

"Yeah." He stretches his arms over his head, cracking his shoulders and swinging his feet onto the floor. "Okay, Roomie. I'm going to go sleep on the couch."

"But this is your bed!" Neela struggles to sit up, pushing her hair out of her eyes. She doesn't want to do that to him. It isn't fair. "I can get up."

"I'm already standing," he says, shrugging a little. "Plus at this point you'd probably get lost on your way across the hall. Seriously. Go ahead and just stay."

Neela hesitates; she feels terrifyingly at home beneath these sheets. "Are you sure?"

"Yeah, Neela." Ray looks at her for a moment, inclining his head the tiniest fraction of an inch. "I'm pretty sure."

"Well." She loves this apartment, truly. She is going to be so sorry to lose it. "Take a shot every time Ray is surprisingly chivalrous," she says sleepily, and pulls the covers over her head for one more night.


End file.
